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The reason that the Bush Administration decided to systematically bypass the FISA Court may have derived from the Court’s reprimand of an aggressive senior FBI official. The recent hyped-up political brouhaha about wiretapping without warrants is put in perspective by a Newsmax article entitled: FISA Discouraged Moussaoui Warrant
Led by the New York Times, a chorus of administration critics have been insisting all week that there was no reason for President Bush to circumvent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when he sought to wiretap terrorists operating inside the U.S. - since the FISA Court almost always approves such requests.
But that's not what the Times reported three years ago, after FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley came forward with the allegation that the Bureau might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if only investigators had been allowed access to the laptop computer of suspected 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui.
Moussaoui was arrested in Minneapolis on Aug. 16, 2001 - nearly four weeks before the 9/11 attacks - after an instructor at a local flight school he attended called the F.B.I. to report that he suspected the Moroccan-born terrorist was up to no good.
In a May 2002 report the Times noted
The secret court went so far as to discipline Michael Resnick, the F.B.I. supervisor in charge of coordinating terrorist surveillance operations, saying they would no longer accept warrant applications from him.
Intelligence officials told the Times that the FISA Court's decision to reprimand Resnick, who had been a rising star in the FBI, "resulted in making the Bureau far less aggressive in seeking information on terrorists."
"Other officials," the paper said, complained that the FISA Court's actions against Resnick "prompted Bureau officials to adopt a play-it-safe approach that meant submitting fewer applications and declining to submit any that could be questioned."
Sen. Charles Grassley is among those who think that the FBI might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks if the FISA Court hadn't discouraged the Bureau from aggressively pursuing a warrant in the Moussaoui case.
In a January 2002 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Grassley noted that had a search been permitted, "Agents would have found information in Moussaoui’s belongings that linked him both to a major financier of the [9/11] hijacking plot working out of Germany, and to a Malaysian Al Qaeda boss who had met with at least two other [9/11] hijackers while under surveillance by intelligence officials."
The REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF 9/11 by the House Permanent Select and Senate Select Intelligence Committees issued in in December, 2002 clearly stated the FBI’s problem with the FISA courts and procedures. Among the systemic findings of problems the Joint Inquiry uncovered was Finding 12, namely:
12. Finding: During the summer of 2001, when the Intelligence Community was bracing for an imminent al-Qa’ida attack, difficulties with FBI applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance and the FISA process led to a diminished level of coverage of suspected al-Qa’ida operatives in the United States. The effect of these difficulties was compounded by the perception that spread among FBI personnel at Headquarters and the field offices that the FISA process was lengthy and fraught with peril.
It’s becoming clear that the FISA procedures were anything but the almost automatic approval they were intended to be by the original statute. Indeed, the finding above seems to indicate very serious problems with prissy FISA judges.
In the case of the FBI, the judges adopted an extremely hostile stance to the Bureau’s submissions.
Had the Moussaoui computer been searched, the 9/11 Conspiracy might have been averted, or at least a warning might have been sounded.
Instead, a judiciary bureaucracy caused the FBI hassles which blocked counterterrorism efforts which may have prevented the catastrophe from occurring.
2 comments :
Yes, if only there were no FISA, 9/11 could have been averted. Of course, Bush still would have been required to end his vacation early when he got a memo stating 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.', something he didn't do, so it's a moot point at best.
But as far as your NewsMax (that venerable bastion of objective journalism!) citation goes, it may interest you to learn that Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who first brought the Moussaoui case to light, has criticized Bush for his surveillance of U.S. citizens on American soil. What's more, she has taken the time to explode three myths, found in NewsMax and elsewhere, which right-wingers use to justify Bush's actions. She concludes by arguing that whatever limitations may have existed prior to 9/11 were swept away by the Patriot Act.
It was FBI incompetence, not FISA, which caused problems in the Moussaoui case, and incompetence continues to prevent this adminstration from doing its job. Personally, I don't mind giving up a little privacy because national security demands it. But I do mind giving up privacy because those leading our government are corrupt and inept.
The Finding 12 quoted in my blog certainly puts the lie to FBI incompetence, as it was the FISA court's repeated obstructions which prevented the Bureau from moving forward on Agent Rowley's requests.
I know she is running for office and may now protest that it was the FBI and not the FISA courts.
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